


Finding Normal

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine is standing in his kitchen after school, slowly drinking a glass of water and trying to focus enough to do his homework after another hard day of memories and watching people sing and feeling utterly unable to join in, when his phone chimes on the counter.</p><p>set the evening of the final song of 5x03 (“The Quarterback”), with no spoilers beyond</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Normal

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure I was going to write for this episode, and even today as I was typing this fic I wasn't sure I was going to share it. It is hard for me to feel good about writing a story about this episode, to make a pastime out of people's huge, real life grief, but I process my world through words. I hurt because I love. So here we are. I've decided to share, because as Liz pointed out maybe there's someone who could use to read this fic in the same way I felt better for writing it.
> 
> The character death warning is only for canon.

Blaine is standing in his kitchen after school, slowly drinking a glass of water and trying to focus enough to do his homework after another hard day of memories and watching people sing and feeling utterly unable to join in, when his phone chimes on the counter.

He looks over to find that it’s a text from Kurt, which is a surprise because Kurt was going home to spend the afternoon with Carole. Blaine hadn’t expected to hear from him again until after dinner.

It’s a little bit of a surprise that it’s a text at all from him, too, because they’ve been calling more than texting the past month. Even if some of their conversations have been quick, or lengthy but largely silent besides their breathing, they’ve both been drawn to connect through talking.

The text reads: _Are you able to come by later?_

It doesn’t ask if he’s free but if he’s _able_ , and Blaine knows immediately both why Kurt sent him a text and why he phrased it that way. He wants to give Blaine to chance to say no.

Blaine hasn’t been to Kurt’s house since the day of funeral, when he’d sat in shock in the Hummel-Hudson living room afterwards and watched so many people eat and talk together, sometimes in subdued voices and sometimes in laughter, and wondered how they managed to act the way they did. Blaine could keep himself together, pass plates, help people with their coats, and not watch Kurt from across the room when all he wanted to was pull him away from something Kurt was handling so much better than he was, but he didn’t really understand how people could just _be_ like that, could be anything like okay, especially there, in that house where Finn should have been but wasn’t anymore.

He still doesn’t understand how people can act like things are normal when Finn isn’t _there_. He understands not sobbing in the middle of the living room, he understands not acting out, that all makes sense to him, he was raised that way, but normal? No, he doesn’t feel like anything’s normal. He didn’t then, and he still doesn’t.

It has been a relief that after the first day or two home around the funeral Kurt has been asking to come to him instead of asking him to come to his house. Blaine had thought it was for Kurt, for him to find a little respite in Blaine’s quiet room instead of his sorrow-drenched home where somehow Finn was never going to come through that door again, but this text shows clearly it was not, or not totally. Clearly Kurt had taking care of Blaine, too, even when Blaine should have been the one taking care of him.

 _Of course_ , Blaine types back, because he’ll do anything Kurt needs, even go there and not hear the echo of Finn’s huge feet on the stairs. _When?_

He breathes through his nose, puts his glass in the sink, and wipes his hands on the dish towel before slipping them into his pocket while he waits.

 _Rachel is coming over soon_ , Kurt replies after a minute or two. _So, seven?_

 _I’ll be there_ , Blaine promises. He slings his bag over his shoulder and picks up his phone to head up to his room. He’ll have to try to finish his homework before he goes.

He still doesn’t have any interest in it, but he should do it. There’s still college ahead, still life to live somehow. He needs to do what he’s supposed to do.

And if nothing else it will keep him from thinking about Finn, about Rachel, about Kurt, about Glee Club, about everything that’s missing and hurt and forever changed. At least he won’t think about it for a little while. Even that much would be a relief.

Kurt texts back a simple: _Thank you. <3_

 

It’s exactly seven according to his watch when Blaine climbs the front stairs and hesitates for a moment before ringing the Hummel-Hudson doorbell. It still seems wrong to disturb what little peace the household might be finding.

It still seems wrong that there’s not going to be a shout of “Not it!” from somewhere in the house or a thunder of footsteps before the door is thrown open.

Blaine can’t count how many times Finn has opened the front door for him over the years, always with a smile even if his mouth was full with a sandwich or an apple or, one notable time, what looked like an entire toaster pastry. He can’t count how many hours he’s spent on their couch watching TV with Kurt and Finn or at the kitchen table chatting over an afternoon snack. He can’t count how many times they’ve set the dinner table together or helped wash the dishes after a meal.

He never bothered to count, he never thought there’d be a reason to, but if he did know the number now it would be with the awful knowledge that the count will never be higher than what it is.

That’s it. None of it will ever happen again.

Finn’s gone, and that’s it, and this hole in Blaine’s chest will always be there.

Blaine takes a sharp breath and pushes the doorbell. It’s not going to get any easier.

He doesn’t know how Kurt goes through his day every day feeling this way. He’s lost his mother and now Finn, and the pain must be enormous. Blaine knows it is. It’s so much worse for Kurt than it is for him, it’s his family, and yet somehow Kurt is still moving through the world and breathing and talking, as much as he’s hurting. Blaine doesn’t know how it’s possible when he feels so compressed in his own skin, silent against the intensity of his own feelings.

There’s no shouting, no sound of footsteps to follow the chime of the doorbell. The door just swings silently open, and Kurt steps back to let Blaine inside. His eyes are red-rimmed, his face the pale, washed out watercolor it has been for weeks, but his back is straight, and his mouth twitches into a very faint smile of greeting.

“Hi,” Kurt says as he shuts the door.

Blaine stands in the middle of the hallway, not frozen but not quite sure where he ought to be. He doesn’t want to disrupt things more than they already are. He can hear movement somewhere distantly in the house, like a washing machine or someone splashing in a sink, but it’s otherwise quiet.

Then Kurt steps toward him with a shaky breath and that fragile _look_ in his eyes, and Blaine opens his arms. He might shudder with the emotions pressing out against his skin as Kurt fits himself close and lays his head on Blaine’s shoulder, but he makes himself keep it together. He needs to keep it together for Kurt, who lost his brother and who is taking care of his family and friends, who is standing tall and keeping his head up through all of the pain, who is doing so much Blaine couldn’t ever imagine doing at any age, especially not at theirs. Blaine needs to comfort him. Blaine needs to let Kurt have what he needs, and in private, with him, Kurt lets himself go a little and silently asks for so much more.

So Blaine holds him, breathes through his nose, and holds _on_ as Kurt curls close for a long minute.

“How was Rachel’s visit?” Blaine asks when Kurt lifts his head and leans his temple against Blaine’s.

“Hard,” Kurt replies softly. “But good. I think it was good. We had a few things for her, and I thought she might want to see Finn’s room again before - ” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but Blaine knows he means before the room isn’t Finn’s anymore.

Blaine nods. “That was very thoughtful of you.”

Kurt lifts a shoulder in a vague shrug and smooths his hands down Blaine’s arms before stepping out of the hug. He watches Blaine’s face and says, “Carole and I have something for you, too.” He dips his head a little, so tightly focused on Blaine’s eyes. “Is that okay?”

Blaine can’t speak. He can only nod again, because as hard as this is for him, as awful as it sounds right now to be given something of Finn’s that ought to have _remained_ Finn’s, this is a thousand times harder for Kurt. Blaine isn’t going to fight with him on anything.

He might need to put whatever it is in a drawer and not look at it for a year, but if Kurt wants him to have it he will take it.

“It’s still upstairs.” Kurt glances up over his shoulder. “Do you want to come, or...” He seems to see something in Blaine’s face and think better of the suggestion. He strokes down Blaine’s arm again and says, his light eyes crinkling with sympathy, “I’ll bring it down.”

Blaine takes a breath to offer to go, as little as he wants to be in Finn’s room - not his anymore, his things slowly being removed, _never_ his again, and how does that make any sense in the world, that there’s no Finn and no place for him? - because he doesn’t want to make anything any harder for him, but Kurt just shakes his head.

“It’s fine, Blaine. I’ll be right back,” Kurt says, and with that he turns around and walks softly but quickly upstairs.

Disappointed in himself for not doing the right thing faster, for making Kurt take care of _him_ , Blaine walks with determination into the family room and sits down on the couch. That’s better than just standing like a statue in the hall. At least he can do that much.

There are still family pictures on the shelves and walls, though, and Blaine’s chest goes so tight that it hurts as he looks at the familiar smiles, can almost hear the laughter spilling out of Finn’s mouth, out of Carole’s. But he doesn’t want to look away, either, because they’re good memories. It’s nice to remember them. It’s _Finn_.

It _was_ Finn.

God. Was.

Will he ever get used to _was_? How do you get used to that?

How do you get used to not having your friend, your brother, your son, in your life anymore?

Blaine has to turn away, staring at the arm of the couch and trying not to think of anything at all.

Holding his hands tightly together, he snaps his head up as soon as he hears a footfall nearby. He might not be used to Finn being gone, he might never be, but it’s still what’s happened. He can do this.

Kurt rounds the corner holding a red, triangular pennant in front of him with both hands, like it’s made of glass instead of cheap, synthetic fabric. He sits gently down on the cushion next to Blaine, his weight rocking them together for a moment, and he lays the McKinley Titans pennant over his own knees. “We thought you might like this. He used to have it on his wall.”

Blaine stares at it and doesn’t know how to form words around the lump in his throat.

It was _Finn’s_ , and it isn’t anymore because he doesn’t need it. He’s not here. He’ll never need it again. He presses his hands together until it hurts, because he doesn’t know how to speak. He feels like there’s so much inside of him it’s holding his mouth closed like an airplane’s internal air pressure keeps the doors from opening when it’s flying.

But he doesn’t know how to descend and find an equilibrium. He doesn’t know how to speak. He doesn’t even know if he wants to, because silence is so much simpler, only Kurt’s talking to him.

“You don’t have to take it,” Kurt says into Blaine’s helpless silence. He lays his hands flat over the pennant. “I thought - I know he gave you such a hard time when you transferred, but in the end he loved having you at McKinley. He was so glad you were a part of Glee. He was happy you were there to lead it after we graduated.”

Blaine’s breath catches in his chest, somewhere under his heart, and he still doesn’t know how to speak. They’d had such troubles, and they’d become good friends, and how can Finn be _gone_?

Kurt tips his head, still watching him. “You don’t have to take it,” he says again, so gently. “You don’t have to take anything, or we can find something else.” He breathes out, not quite a laugh. “Although it’s not like any of his clothes are going to fit you.”

Blaine chokes out a laugh of his own, and he places his hand over Kurt’s on top of the pennant. “No, this is perfect. Thank you.” He can’t look at it without his eyes blurring with tears; it will always remind him of what they all had together, how special it was, but maybe someday that will feel like a good thing. He hopes it will.

“You’re welcome,” Kurt says, a little wetly, and he puts the pennant on the coffee table before leaning into Blaine, their arms coming up around each other again. “Thank you for wanting it.”

“Kurt,” Blaine says against Kurt’s shoulder. “It’s _Finn_.”

It doesn’t really make sense as a sentence, but Kurt seems to understands what he means, that he’d take or do anything if it would honor Finn, his friend and Kurt’s brother, and he says, “I know.”

Blaine breathes out hard and can’t say anything else. He doesn’t know what else _to_ say. Finn’s been gone a month; this is hardly the first time they’ve talked about him. Time is passing, this is reality, and Blaine doesn’t know how to do anything but sit here and feel the hollowness that sits inside of him.

Kurt curls his fingers into Blaine’s shirt, and even if he sounds like he’s smiling through it there are tears in his voice when he whispers, “He was really excited you were going to be his brother.”

The word _brother_ strikes Blaine like a blow right in the chest, cracking the shell around him that was keeping him contained, and he can’t keep back the sob that breaks out of him. He can’t answer and assure Kurt he was happy about it, too. He can’t say anything. But he can’t hold all of himself in, either. Silence isn’t an option. He tries, but he can’t stop the next sob, or the sob after that.

He just cries and holds onto Kurt’s too-strong body, lets Kurt ground him as Kurt’s quieter tears dampen his shoulder. He cries and thinks of all he has lost, all of Finn’s potential, the family they should have been, the family they all wanted to be. He cries in violent enough gulps that his lungs hurt with it, the pain in his heart fierce, and his only consolation is that Kurt’s face is crumpled in shared grief against his cheek. He’s not alone.

He feels like he ought to apologize for not keeping it together when Kurt’s been doing such a good job of controlling himself, but if they can’t share this in private then where can they? It’s not the first time they’ve cried together over Finn’s death, but it feels all the harder for still being this easy to fall apart again a month later. Shouldn’t it be fading a little, this sharp pain?

A month gone, and it still _hurts_ to know that there’s this void in the world that will never be filled.

Finn will never again steal the last roll at dinner or groan at the sight of _Project Runway_ on the TV. He will never again high five and cheer over video games or order the biggest popcorn at the movie theater and then accidentally spill it over half the row twenty minutes in. 

He will never again lift his voice and his smile and lead them in song.

He won’t be there at Christmas. He won’t graduate from college. He won’t stand up with Kurt at their wedding.

He won’t be there, and there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it. They just have to live with it, and even though it’s been a month and life is, in fact, going on, Blaine doesn’t know how anything can ever quite be okay again.

It doesn’t make any _sense_. Death doesn’t make any sense.

And Kurt, his strong, handsome, incredible fiance, has somehow lived feeling this way every day for _years_.

Blaine holds him more tightly, stroking down Kurt’s back and pressing his face against Kurt’s jaw. Kurt’s hands curve around his shoulders, keeping him close. It’s a warm comfort in a cold reality, and it makes some of the tightness inside of Blaine ease, just enough.

Kurt still shines like a bright beacon in the world, even feeling this way. He still lives and loves and spends each minute like the world is his to take. Maybe it’s because he has these holes in his heart, Blaine thinks. Maybe he understands better what life means.

Blaine wouldn’t wish that knowledge on him, but now that he understands it in his own way he feels even more certain that he’s with the right person, doing the right things in his life. He’s made the right choices, at least recently.

“I’m so glad I asked you to marry me,” Blaine tells him, finally finding words his voice needs to speak, rough as it sounds. “Not just because Finn knew, but because we aren’t waiting. We have each other. If life is this short, I want to be yours every minute of it.”

Kurt tips his head to press his mouth to Blaine’s forehead, and he says in a fierce whisper, “Me, too.”

Blaine caresses him carefully, aware even more than usual of just how _precious_ Kurt is to him. “I love you so much.”

Kurt nods and makes a soft, wounded sound in the back of his throat. He swallows, takes in a breath, and says, “And we’ll do something at the wedding. When we - we’ll do something. For him.”

Another burst of emotion propels itself from Blaine’s chest, not quite a sob but close enough, and he clutches at Kurt’s vest and chokes out, “Yes. Of course. God, of course we will, Kurt.” It won’t be the same as having him there, he knows it won’t, but if he starts to think about it now maybe he can find a way not to cry through it when they get married, at least not this kind of helpless, horrible tears.

Kurt strokes his back and kisses his temple again, soothing him. Blaine struggles to get himself under control, because if anyone should be being soothed it should be Kurt, but Kurt just leans their heads together and holds him, lets Blaine hold him, his own face wet, too. Blaine knows he’s comforted, too.

Kurt doesn’t tell him that it’s going to be okay, and Blaine can’t say it back, even if seems like the platitude is called for. Right now, it doesn’t feel like anything can ever be okay.

But Blaine also knows Kurt. He knows how Kurt gets up in the morning and shines through his day, even with his mother gone. He knows how Kurt stood proudly at the funeral and has been keeping his head high this week with their friends. He knows that Kurt lives on with his grief, and Blaine knows that he will live on, too. He’ll keep going without Finn. They both will. They all will.

They might not want to, they will surely miss him forever, but they will keep going and live their lives, and his life, with Kurt, is still going to be absolutely amazing, because nothing with Kurt can be anything less, even if it’s all tinged with pain now. It’s still _Kurt_ , and Kurt’s still _his_ , for however long life will allow forever to be.

“I love you so much,” Blaine tells him again, breathing in through his nose and letting Kurt’s laundry detergent and closeness settle him a little. “And I really am so happy you said yes.” He doesn’t even want to think what this would all feel like if they’d still been broken up, not being able to hold Kurt and comfort him. He doesn’t want to think about what it must be like for Rachel not to have another chance at happiness with her true love, not to get to kiss him again, not to have their last words be ones of love.

Blaine breaks off that train of thought and focuses on Kurt, on what he _has_ , which is everything, really, everything he possibly can.

He’s so fortunate.

He already knew that, or he thought he did, but he really, really _is_.

Kurt nudges his nose off of Blaine’s cheek and opens his damp eyes to look at him with a sad, soft sort of gratitude. “I love you, too,” he says, and that corner of his mouth lifts again, just a hair, like when he’d let Blaine into the house. He leans in to press a gentle, salty-wet kiss to Blaine’s mouth. “It’s good to be reminded that there are sweet things in life, too.”

“Like you,” Blaine says without a second’s hesitation.

“And you,” Kurt says, smiling a little more. He sits back some, wipes his damp cheek on his own shoulder, and slides his hands down Blaine’s arms to clasp his hands loosely. “And cookies.” He tips his head to the side, watching Blaine’s face. “I was planning on indulging in some baking therapy tonight.” He lifts his eyebrows in gentle challenge. “If you help me, I’ll send some home with you.”

Blaine feels a hint of a grin rising to his own face. He strokes his thumbs lightly over the backs of Kurt’s hands. “You don’t need to bribe me to help you bake, Kurt. It’s time with you. Not that I’m going to say no to cookies. I love your cookies.”

“I was thinking of making double chocolate chip,” Kurt says. His eyes flick toward the pictures on the wall and then back to Blaine’s face, a little hesitant, still worrying about him.

“Finn’s favorite,” Blaine says quietly, barely able to draw enough breath to speak. It’s suddenly hard all over again, a weight on his chest.

Kurt nods carefully. “We can make something else,” he says. “Oatmeal pecan, or - “

“No,” Blaine says. He makes his lungs work, makes himself breathe. “I mean, you should make whatever you want. But if you’re concerned about me, or it being too soon... I think you should make his favorite.” He takes another breath and tries to push away that weight holding him down. It’s hard to find words when what he feels is so _big_ and _awful_ , but he knows he needs to try. He manages what he hopes is something in the neighborhood of a smile. “He wouldn’t have wanted us to go without cookies, Kurt.”

Kurt’s eyes go a little watery, but his chin raises and his mouth firms. “You’re right. We can toast him with a glass of milk when they’re done,” he says.

“Okay.”

“But I’m not crumbling one up in the bottom of my glass to make the milk all chocolatey like he did. That’s still gross.”

Blaine has always agreed that it’s pretty unappealing to have soggy cookie crumbs floating in his milk, but he’s surprised to find a part of him wants to do it, anyway, just the way Finn would have, _because_ Finn would have, and he won’t anymore. There’s no one to do it but them, no one else to remember.

He swallows hard, because it’s all so _wrong_.

Blaine looks at Kurt, at the lines of his face and the sweetness of his eyes. He feels the strength of his hands. He knows the power of his heart. All of that, at least, is _right_.

As hard as it feels, this is life, and it is going on, and Blaine is here with his fiance, making the best of this moment that they can.

Blaine stands up, still holding Kurt’s hands, and pulls him lightly to his feet. He stays there for a second, sad, grateful, shaken but not broken, and then he says, “Let’s go bake some cookies.”

“Finn’s favorite,” Kurt says with a nod, quiet but determined.

“Finn’s favorite,” Blaine agrees.

Kurt squeezes his hands and drops one of them, his grip on the other still firm and sure, a tether between them as he leads him away from the couch.

The house is quiet around them, no heavy footfalls from the garage, no video games in the other room, no singing in the upstairs shower, as they make their way to the kitchen. There’s the low murmur of a voice upstairs, Carole, maybe, but that’s it. That’s all there is.

It’s wrong; it’s so wrong. Without Finn, the house is always going to feel wrong to Blaine. Always.

But, Blaine thinks, as Kurt flicks on the lights and pulls out the eggs and butter from the refrigerator like Blaine has watched him do dozens of times before, it’s not always going to feel quite so impossible to walk through it.

They’re going to heal. They’re going to live. They’re going to make new memories, new pictures, maybe always bittersweet for the absence they can never fill but still good ones.

It’s their only choice, really.

Time goes on. The days go on. Life goes on, all without Finn.

And Blaine knows, knows more certainly than ever as he fetches the canisters of flour and sugar from their places on the counter and takes his place beside Kurt, shoulder to shoulder, grounded with him and the little smiles they can share together, that even though their hearts are heavy and more tears are ahead before anything feels at all like normal, they will somehow go on, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I am spoiler-free. Please don't tell me about any upcoming episodes!


End file.
